David Lai's Business Intelligence Blog

In this article we will go through creating different HANA Connections in SAP BusinessObjects and then using them in different applications. We’ll also talk about the differences between the different types of HANA connections.

CONNECTION #1: Create SAP HANA http OLAP Connection

First, we need to create the HANA http connection to SAP HANA.

1. Log onto the Central Management Console (CMC) with a user that has Administrative privileges, and go to OLAP Connections

2. Select the folder you want to create the HANA connection in and click on the New Connection icon.

3. Fill out the name and description fields with something that is meaningful

4. Choose SAP HANA http as the Provider

5. On the Server field, enter the https address and port of your HANA server that we setup in Part 1

6. To make things simple, choose Pre-defined for Authentication, and enter the user credentials of the HANA user with role INA_USER

7. (Optional) I like to change the Maximum Parallel Queries to 10

8. To do a quick test to check if your connection is good, please click on the Connect button, enter the HANA user credentials, and then click OK

9. You should then see a Cube Browser that allows you select a HANA view if desired

10. Exit from the Cube Browser and click on Save

The HANA live connection is now accessible!

CONNECTION #2: Create regular SAP HANA Connection

1. Log onto the Central Management Console (CMC) with a user that has Administrative privileges, and go to OLAP Connections

2. Select the folder you want to create the HANA connection in and click on the New Connection icon.

3. Fill out the name and description fields with something that is meaningful

4. Choose SAP HANA as the Provider

5. On the Server Information field, enter the HANA hostname and use default port of 30015 unless you set it as something different.

6. To make things simple, choose Pre-defined for Authentication. Login with a user that has access to the HANA views you want to query on.

7. (Optional) I like to change the Maximum Parallel Queries to 10

CONNECTION #3: Create SAP HANA Relational Connection

This is useful if you want to create a universe on a HANA view or if you want to use HANA Online connection in Web Intelligence.

1. Open Information Design Tool and log onto your BI Platform

2. Right Click on the connection folder where you would like to create the new connection. Select Insert Relational Connection

3. Give the connection a meaningful name and description, then click Next

4. Choose the Driver SAP -> SAP HANA database -> JDBC Drivers

5. Enter the appropriate credentials for a HANA user that has access to the HANA views

6. By default, in most scenarios Single Server should be okay for the Data Source Format

7. Enter the HANA server hostname and instance

8. When you are finished, click on the Test Connection button to confirm the connection works

9. Click on Finish

Connecting to HANA through Lumira Designer

Lumira Designer must connect to HANA via the HANA http connection.

Because we set the authentication type for our HANA Http connection as Pre-defined, we will need to modify SapLumiraDesigner.ini file, otherwise the connection will not be visible.

1. Go to <installation path>/SAP Lumira/Lumira Designer

2. Open Notepad or any other text editor as Administrator, and then open SapLumiraDesigner.ini

3. Add the following text to the end of the file

-DenableUserPasswordAuthenticationForOLAPConnections=true

4. Open Lumira Designer and log onto SAP BI Platform.

5. Create a new project or open an existing project/application

6. Right click on the Data Sources folder and Add Data Source…

7. Click on Browse… beside Connection:

8. Click on Browse Connections…

9. Select the HANA Live connection that you created and press OK

10. Click on Browse… beside Data Source:

11. Select your desired HANA View and click on OK

12. Give a meaningful name to the Data Source Alias:

Congratulations! You have created your first HANA Live Data Source

Connecting to HANA through Web Intelligence

Web Intelligence provides 2 options to connect to HANA views

• Option 1: SAP HANA
• Option 2: SAP HANA Online
• Option 3: Free-hand SQL

Option 1: SAP HANA

To use this method, you must use Connection #2.

Using this method will take you to a query editor where you can choose the dimensions and measures you would like to work with on your report.

Option 2: SAP HANA Online

To use this method, you must use Connection #3 (relational HANA connection)

It will skip the query editor and go straight to the reporting canvas

Option 3: Free-hand SQL

The final option is to create free-hand SQL. This is ONLY recommended for advanced users, and you must use Connection #3 (relational HANA connection)

SAP HANA vs SAP HANA Online

There are quite a lot of differences between SAP HANA and SAP HANA Online.

The most notable differences are:

• The SAP HANA datasource requires that you create your query via the query editor. Data retrieved is also processed under the WEBI microcube. With large amounts of data, there will be a performance impact as the processing load is not at the database level. SAP HANA Online does all the processing at the database level, so every time you modify the objects on the report canvas, the database will automatically refresh to reflect the changes.
• SAP HANA Online does not let you use hierarchy drill functionality on the report canvas as everything is flattened. This in my opinion is a major issue, because it does not allow you to use OLAP hierarchy functionality on your reports

For more details and discussion on the differences between SAP HANA and SAP HANA Online, please visit the following sites:

https://answers.sap.com/questions/12561904/bo-42-webi—sap-hana-vs-hana-online.html

https://blogs.sap.com/2017/01/30/4-ways-to-connect-webi-on-top-of-hana-views/

I’m not sure why, but it would be a lot better if Connection #1 (SAP HANA http), could be used as that is the recommended method for external applications to connect onto HANA using secure INA.

Connecting to HANA through Analysis for Office

From my experience, performance via Analysis for Office is quite good as we use Connection #1 (SAP HANA http) here.

Please follow the steps below to connect to a HANA datasource

1. Open Analysis for Excel
2. Go to the Analysis ribbon
3. Click on Insert Data Source
4. Select the SAP HANA http connection that you created for Connection #1
5. Click Next >

6. Choose the appropriate cube and click on OK

You can now perform analysis on your HANA data source